Star Wars, Frozen, and multiple Pixar franchise all have gotten or are getting theme park installations. But none of them have made as much money in aggregate at the box office as Marvel.
So what's keeping Disney from bringing Marvel to its theme parks?
Of course, longtime Theme Park Insider readers will know this answer... and probably be able to write the rest of this post themselves. But the average theme park fan might not know about the deal that Marvel Studios signed with MCA in the 1990s and how that deal is affecting the global development of theme parks still today.
In my Orange County Register column last weekend, I wrote about the deal that binds Marvel, Disney and Universal, allowing Universal Orlando to host the Marvel Super Hero Island at its Islands of Adventure theme park while keeping the major Marvel characters out of Walt Disney World's theme parks. I also examine the deal in light of the recent rumors that Disney might create a Guardians of the Galaxy overlay for its Twilight Zone Tower of Terror rides.
If you've ever wondered why certain characters and franchises can appear in certain parks but not in others, deals such as this one are the reason. I hope you'll give this column a read... and keep a lookout for my columns each week in the Orange County Register.
Read Robert's column:
Tweet
There is rumour that HKDL will turn Autopia into another Marvel ride to go with Iron Man Experience and form a Marvel area within the new Tomorrowland.
#1-When Universal aquired the theme park rights to Marvel, why specifically did they place the restrictions on building Marvel rides in other parks? Did they know that Disney would buy them out years later? Did these restrictions only apply to Marvel, or did it also apply to IOA's other licensed IPs? (Popeye, Dr. Seuss etc.)
#2-Why is it that the Marvel rights for USH expired but UO still has them? Was it because UO had actually built something?
#3-Just like B Goodwin, I also saw merchandise based on the GOTG film in one of the stores (And at a very hefty price, mind you). They even had pictures from the film on display! Does this mean that TOT won't be getting a GOTG overlay? (I hope the answer's yes).
#4-So, the deal between Universal and Marvel means that WDW can't have anything Marvel-related in their parks, right? But on my last few times riding Maelstrom, I saw that they were selling a children's book adaptation of Thor: The Dark World in the gift shop! How did they pull that off?
Actually both are making monies off of Marvel. But you know it must bug the snot out of Disney... hahahahaaha.
Plus Disney would take 6 years to make a ride like Hulk.. Oh never mind, Disney has to make small family rides....
On what planet is RocknRollercoaster a "small family ride?"
1) I am not a Register employee and do not have a contract with the Register. I write a weekly column for Register (which is made available to other papers in the LA Newspaper Group) on a freelance basis. I don't need to link here to my stuff on the Register's website, but I do because I think that many TPI readers would be interested.
2) It doesn't cost anything more to read my column on the Register than the time and effort to click the link. Here at TPI, I don't break posts into five different pages to inflate my views, nor do I do those multi-click slideshows, so I do try to respect your reading experience by not disrupting it unnecessarily. But I don't think it's too much to do a post that introduces a Register column once a week. The intro post here is basically the TL;DR, so you're not missing something crucial if you don't read the whole thing. But I do try to reward the readers who do. (And thank you to those visitors who do click to read the whole column!)
3) If you've been reading TPI for a while and read my stuff on the Register, well, you're not wrong if you see things coming up again and again. I think I've written this Marvel column about six times now across the two publications. If I have some breaking news, a scoop, or a new insight, it's going up here on TPI first. (FWIW, I file my Register columns several days in advance of their appearance on the Register website and in print.) Think of the Register column as the "Best of" recent posts on TPI.
Anyway, I hope this helps anyone to understand, for anyone who cares to understand what's up here.
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
